My Opinions On The Morality Of The Four Major Decisions In Scarlet Hollow:
If the title of this post didn’t make it clear: spoilers for the game Scarlet Hollow ahead. It is one of the best games I have ever played and it puts so many other choices matter games to shame (no hate to other games though, the level of work that went into writing all of the intricate paths in this game astounds me). All of my stances that I’m about to go into are my own opinion and of course the whole point of Scarlet Hollow is that you have to make difficult decisions and there is no right answer. It really puts your values to the test and you really have to consider why it is that you believe a certain answer is the better one, and these choices work really well to spark discussions about morality and values and all sorts of things within the fandom. So, feel free to chime in with your own opinions on this as well. Also, we’re going to disregard the trait saves here as they’re obviously the best of the options where you don’t really have to sacrifice anything. However, I don’t think that they defeat the point of the game since they add a whole new level to character creation as just by deciding who you are at the beginning shows what you value and therefore which situations you value getting out of above others. It shows how people can only get good at a few things which can come in handy but it also means not being able to master everything. That’s my explanation for why Hardcore mode exists, it lets you make a character who is spread too thin, they have three skills but they’re not good enough to use in super strenuous situations.
Now, onto the first moral conundrum. Episode one: saving the dog or saving the old man? Look, I’m not sorry, the choice was really easy for me on my first play through, I really had no hesitation about saving Gretchen. I know that some people are very firmly in the valuing human lives over animal lives camp, but I’m personally not. I think that animals are living beings just the same as us and it’s wrong to value one over the other. If anything, I prefer animals to humans. Animals are trying to survive, you’d have to be talking about a very intelligent animal to pinpoint one who is purposefully cruel. On top of that, I took the speak with animals ability on my first playthrough which confirms that animals in Scarlet Hollow have the same capacity for thought and intelligence as the humans. They even have their own society. And later, Gretchen helps to gather the dogs together for their political uprising against mayor Jimmy. You could argue that she’s an old dog anyway, but Duke is very old as well. Neither of them have much time left. Duke does have a family that cares about him, and it really sucks seeing Bo grieve him later in the game, but Gretchen has family too. She is the only thing Stella has left of her family. Taking her dog away after everything’s she’s been through is just cruel. Add another layer of cruelty with the way that the group ends up having to shoot Gretchen in the route where she’s taken to spare her the pain, especially when it’s Stella doing it, that is so sad. (And the old yeller achievement you get for doing that is crazy work). However, I will say that on my second playthrough I ditched Stella to go hang out with Duke and it did make me feel a bit bad about killing him in my first playthrough. He really is a good person at heart who genuinely cares about his family, and the story he tells about growing Bessy with Bo is really sweet. He’s very much on the traditional old timey capitalist side of things judging from pretty much everything about him as well as the way that he commends Tabitha, but in a well meaning way. I don’t think he’d be too mean to people who think differently (I hope) although I also ate jerky instead of telling him I was vegetarian so who knows. That sequence did also make me be like you were kind of setting yourself up for this dude when he was drinking bud light (another reason he can’t be thaaaaat bad lol if yk yk) in the middle of the woods while hunting. When I asked him if it was a good idea to be drinking, he was just like I can take my liquor it’s just bud light not moonshine. Like okay, buddy, we need to have a talk about how alcohol works and basic drinking safety. Like I know it was already dark, but not wonder he misses that shot so badly he shoots his own face when you don’t help him. Not to mention that Duke is actively shooting at the ditchings when they’re not attacking him, only his chicken and Gretchen, if he wasn’t doing that, he wouldn’t have died. I understand why he feels the need to defend himself though because the ditchings are surrounding him and despite not threatening him, they’re pretty scary and are going after Gretchen and his chickens. Still, I stand with my conviction that saving Gretchen is the lesser of two evils.
Now for my thoughts on episode two: leave kids down in the mines or risk yourself and Tabitha and another kid. So, on my first playthrough I ran and left Alexis and Becka down in the mines because I was scared that if we went back for them, Rosalina would get killed and she was the only kid in there that we had ties to in game since we knew her dad and she was worried about her (she also has the same name as my beloved Rosalina from Mario). However, after doing another run where I took the other option and went back for them, I think that going back for Alexis and Becka is the better option. Rosalina is begging for you to go back down there and in the route where you drag her back up, you’re taking away her freedom to make decisions in the moment. These are her friends and she’s the one most at risk. Whether or not Alexis and Becka survive, Rosalina will have to live with the guilt that she left them there for the rest of her life, and it seems like that would be more of a wound for her than have her foot taken. I say this because in the route where I went back for them, I also chose to leave the ghost at the house and she ended up being way more okay with me than in the route where I did that and left her friends in the mines. In the route where I left her friends in the mines and kicked her out of the library, she was so mad about me messing with her family and was exasperated with Oscar to continue to talk to me. However, in the route where her foot was taken away from her and I kicked them out of the library, she was way more okay with my choice since I had saved her friends. (Funny enough, the route where I made both the bad things happen to their poor family was actually the route that I stumbled into having my MC romance Oscar. Mainly just because I was trying to play differently than my first route so I was being a lot meaner to people I was nice to prior and I hadn’t had much time with Oscar before so I was being nice to him and I had the hot trait and his romance with the angst of of everything going on is actually really sweet). At least in this scenario, we know that no one dies. We still don’t know if Becka and Alexis survive the collapse, but we’ll see, and even if they do, give Rosalina’s personality, something tells me that healing from a missing foot is going to be much easier for her than healing from the trauma and guilt of leaving her friends in a collapsing mine. Not to mention how sweet it is to see her and Alexis hanging out and Alexis looking after her when she’s not in the mines. You can also learn from the Keen Eye save that Alexis has a crush on Rosalina, so I wonder if anything will come of that because that’s really sweet and cute and would love to see that happen.
Now for Episode Three: sacrifice years of your life for sins that you never committed just because your related to someone who did, or leave a really sad and vengeful ghost to fester in the library which means that Oscar and Rosalina have no place to live. Or secret third option, be cozy enough with your cousin that she sacrifices her own years for you. On my first playthrough, I felt really awful about leaving this poor ghost to rot here, and for keeping Oscar and Rosalina without a house after all they’d been through. And so I decided that I’d done enough running (since this was also the route where I left children in the mines and I fled from the ditching without trying to seek revenge when Duke died), so I though I ought to take some responsibility. But as I thought more about it, the more I came to the conclusion that it was the worse move in my opinion. The moral debate that episode is tackling is whether or not it should be up to people who are related to people have done wrong to make it right. And while the answer to that question is nuanced, I certainly don’t think that they should have to give up years of your life for it. In the real world parallels that this is drawing towards people who are in positions of privilege due to corruption of their family, yes, it is absolutely our duty to help the best we can to those who were screwed over by history. We should do all we can, and yes we should make sacrifices to make things right, but sacrifices are different than revenge. We should give money and aid, but this should never veer into vengeance. If you have wealth to share, then share it, but people who have been wronged by history have no right to take out their frustrations about it on you. Yes, this sucks, but you specifically did nothing wrong. It’s not your fault that your ancestors were terrible. We should work together towards building a better future rather than taking out our anger on each other. Not to mention, the MC has not benefited from the wealth of their family at all. Their life is terrible! No matter what backstory you give Stella when she asks you in the woods, none of your options of living situations reek of wealth. The MC was cut off from the family and therefore is dirt poor. If anyone should do it, it’s Tabitha since she has inherited the wealth and does in some ways carry on the family cruelty with all of her union busting and such. (We can fiiiix her I hope because Tabby, the capitalism is not a good look. Especially with that one dialogue where Stella says that Tabitha’s biggest inspirations were like Rockefeller and a bunch of other people who were super rich and eeeeh morally). Still, Tabitha didn’t do the crimes, she doesn’t deserve punishment. It sucks that unless you have Booksmart, you’re forced to be very black and white about whether or not to make up for the sins of your family. But that’s also the ghost’s fault for not offering you the option of clearing Charles Shaw’s name, since that would be a much more reasonable and productive request. Because really what is the point of taking years off of some Scarlet’s life. It’s just revenge, and they should be thinking about justice. That’s why the booksmart save is probably my favorite of the saves in the game so far since it lets the MC say pretty much exactly what I was thinking about the ghost’s priorities, and they’re able to come to a better, more nuanced conclusion that’s more productive for everyone involved. Since this is about which of the decisions I think is better without the trait saves though, I’m sticking with leaving the ghost in the house. Is sucks for the ghost, and it sucks for Oscar and Rosalina, but they’ll make do and no one has years sucked off their lifespan for it. I do not believe in having to atone for things that your relatives did.
Now for episode four: let a mother keep poisoning her monster child for what she claims to be safety reasons, or let him eat her, or kill him. Now, I must say that Reese’s story, as someone with disabilities and um experiences both good and bad on medication, Reese’s story really resonated with me me and I have some very strong opinions on it. (My disabilities never had me confined to the house or dealing with the things he does though, I have Tourette and OCD, but the emotions of feeling like people are forcing onto medication that hurts you and not being believed about it and feeling controlled by people who think they know better than you and really think that they’re just trying to help was so painfully relatable and gut wrenching and I really felt for Reese.)(please take your meds though, the meds I was on really did help and I really did need to take them, it’s the pressure the feelings of loss of autonomy that suuuuuuuck). Now, I don’t hate many characters in this game, everyone is so well written and the point of the game is that there are no right or wrong decisions, everything you do comes with sacrifice. But oh booooiiii does Dr. Kelly come close. Don’t get me wrong, I understand where she’s coming from, and she is really well written, but I despise her. I understand that it must have been extremely scary for her becoming pregnant when she wasn’t seeing anyone, not really knowing that he dream thingy was real or would result in actual pregnancy (which could like maybe be considered assault in some variety, like can she really consent if she didn’t know it was real and could impregnate her with some weird cryptic baby? I do absolutely feel awful for her in that situation. Idk why she didn’t try to abort that thang tho because me personally, I would not keep that thing inside of me. But I wonder if with wha Reese is he could have been aborted at all??? Like would it work??? I’m so curious??? But I do also understand on some level why she didn’t try that, since this game takes place in a deeply southern town and I would imagine there’s some stigma there. Also, absolutely not saying I would have wanted Reese aborted, he’s my favorite character in the game, I love Reese, it’s just a thought that I can’t get out of my mind.)
Anyway, regardless, this woman chose to raise the cryptid child, and then the moment he started being weird and cryptidy, she panicked and started poisoning him. Yes, I know that she was careful, I know that she loves her child and wanted wha was best for him, I know that Sybil was the one who told her to do it. But still, Dr. Kelly is a doctor!!! She didn’t have to do what Sybil said, she had options. Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe talking to your son and not completely leaving him in the dark. She didn’t tell him anything about his past or why he was like this. Even when he transforms, he doesn’t even seem to realize that he looks different. He just knows that he feels good. She assumes the worst about her son. She automatically assumes that he would hurt other people while transformed despite the fact that he has never said anything about hurting anyone other than Dr. Kelly considering that Dr. Kelly has been poisoning him his entire life. Keep in mind, that Reese knows absolutely none of Dr. Kelly’s story. All he knows is that he just found out that his mom, who by the way is the only doctor in town (which really sucks for her I do mean genuinely, that must be extremely stressful, being responsible for the entire town’s health, she seriously needs help), so he assumes (and not without good reason) that she could hurt others, and he’s also scared that she’ll come back for him and try to trap him in the basement and hurt him again, and I really don’t blame him. Especially with the shock and trauma of everything hitting him, as well as his body adjusting to finally being off of that poison, and finally feeling the ability to do things and not feeling sick, of course he’s overwhelmed with emotion, because he can finally feel things again. Of course he wants revenge on his mother. No, she doesn’t, she messed up bad, but she doesn’t deserve to be killed for it. I’d be really curious to see if Reese ends up regretting his decision in future chapters once he’s able to process everything. Still, again, I really don’t blame Reese for making snap judgements here. The route where he eats his mom, which is a crazy thing to say, is the best route for him. Otherwise, he ends up either trapped again or dead. The dead route is one that I absolutely despise. I wanted to cry when I played through it to see what would happen. That was so messed up. He did not have to die there. I understand on some level although I still dislike it doing the status quo route since in that one, at least no one dies. But still, Reese is a prisoner. I don’t think that him and Dr. Kelly will ever trust each other again after that, and Reese will continue to be poisoned and kept locked in a basement. Eating his mom really is the best outcome for him, and I’m sorry but I care far more about Reese than I do about Dr. Kelly.
Now for the real world allegory section here. While playing through Reese’s route I was very much reminded of quite a few things that monsters are often used as a metaphor for, queerness, disability, mental illness, any form of difference really. Although I do think that a queer reading could absolutely work here especially considering this is a deeply southern town, I’m going to focus more on the disability and mental illness aspect as that’s clearly what the story is leaning into a lot more. (Also, like everyone in this game you is romance or is pan anyway including him mom soooo). The way that Dr. Kelly fears what will happen if Reese isn’t medicated and what he’ll do to other people be try much reads especially as a mental illness allegory of sorts happening. Especially since a lot of people with mental illnesses have to take meds with physical side effects to lessen the mental ones. Specifically, the way Reese is viewed reminds me a lot of the way that society treats people with stigmatized mental illnesses that people deem as “dangerous.” It’s even more clear with his art, like that’s some mentally ill vent art if I’ve ever seen it. And the way that his autonomy is taken away from him and he’s locked up without being told what’s wrong with him or why has some very strong parallels to the way that in certain cases and certain places psych patients are forced to stay in psych wards and take medication if they’ve been deemed a danger to themselves or others. And yes, sometimes it’s necessary, but sometimes it’s used to keep people under control. Reese was never hurting anyone, he was just too strange and so people deemed too dangerous. That could also very much read as a neurodivergent allegory as well. Anyway, point is, book four is the book I have the strongest opinion about the decision of and Reese is my absolute favorite character in the series and his story really spoke to me and he should get to consume his mother.
Again, feel very free to discuss your opinions about the choices in the comments and reblogs, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
